Which Way Do You Swing? - Politics

Most conservative policies seem to help big business and entrepreneurs by extending tax breaks, incentives and reducing red-tape. These policies assist those already managing.  Sometimes by a little, sometimes a lot. It is the politics and policies of capitalism that fuel the age of the billionaires, and the promise that everyone can achieve those heights. 

These same policies tend to leave those not managing untouched, or, on occasion, worse off, usually in real terms across time, making it harder to quantify any direct disadvantage from an individual policy.

These are policies promoted as celebrating success and allowing the 'job-makers' to take advantage of the system, up to and including, rorting that system. Success and financial power seem to make all these indiscretions tolerable.  

The left finds these greedy, grifting, profiteering examples intolerable and they shout about them as if these are the only examples that exist. They are not. These policies help and support some truly deserving business models, across the economic spectrum, to survive and thrive.

The progressive left puts forward policies that reduce the ability of the successful to make higher profits and placing more restrictions and oversight on businesses. This makes the difficult early years of small business and small sole traders even more precarious. The left also seeks a basic minimum standard of living for all, universal health care, they look to environmental issues at the expense of corporate profits and ensure those on the lowest rungs of society can maintain an equitable standard of living.

These policies are designed to raise the greatest number possible out of poverty and ensure that working full time is rewarded with a liveable wage that covers life's basics and provides for a family. This also allows some to choose not to work and live solely off welfare. 

The right finds these greedy, grifting, freeloading examples intolerable and they shout about them as if these are the only examples that exist. They are not. These policies help and support some truly deserving individuals being let down by a system purported to be looking out for everyone.

I've always felt things work best when liberals and conservatives exchange power at around a 2 to 3 ratio. The right builds up the wealth with a strong economy and the left reforms social policies to help those who slip through the net of the conservative economic lift.

The ratio has slipped across the world because the right has outplayed the left at politics. This has happened because the left regard morality in politics as a badge of honour, and the right has long ago recognised that badges are worthless. 

Once morals counted for something in life and in politics, but then came the age of spin where both side's spokespeople focused only on the faults of the other side, and never with themselves. Where no mistake is owned or corrected and doing the right thing, a standard that was once the default, or at least the desired position, is now the exception.

How did we get here? 

It began when those charged with holding leaders responsible, the fourth estate, the news journalists, became confused with being personalities and entertainers. 

When equal representation of both points of view became more important than facts as determined and checked by multiple sources by professionally trained, skilled and schooled journalists whose reputations depended on their accuracy, facts became irrelevant.

When the politically correct ideal of regarding every view as relevant and worth scrutiny on official news broadcasts became a benchmark, this worthy notion was exploited by those looking to hide issues, spin alternative facts and obfuscate truths. You can shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and get away with it provided you do something provocative enough to misdirect people from your crime. Throw in some 'what-about-ism', cloud the facts with suggestions the victim had a gun or a record, and alert the press that many other people shot people on the same day, and your crime will hardly rate a mention. 

When the opinion/editorial/op-ed piece began to be presented alongside news with little or no delineation, news reporting stopped being news and became political propaganda. The ultimate extension of this is the dedicated partisan network that says whatever is needed by the government to convince people it's news. It is believed for no other reason than it looks like a news channel.

The multiplatform social media landscape has allowed every opinion to be a truth as the presenter presents it. All too often the term 'do your own research', a term intended to mitigate legal issues over commentary of stocks and investments has permeated into every opinion put forward as a phrase to legitimise that opinion by alerting you to the existence of any number of 'opinions' online that back up the opinion being put forward. 'Do your own research' now means, go and read equally dubious opinion pieces posted online by others who share my views.

If you see spokes-people introduced from two sides of politics or from two sides of a contentious issue, what is the point of staying to watch? Professional press agents now spruik their well-rehearsed talking points without ever listening to the other side, and those talking points are always extreme examples. For their team, they put forward positive outliers, for the other side, the negative outliers, and each example gets promoted as examples of the norm - which they are definitely not.  

Politics has stopped being an avenue of service to do the greater good and is now an avenue to get what lobbyists want and stop the will of the people from participating. Journalists began this slide into the darkness of opinions based on wants instead of facts, and the internet has sped it up and made us all contribute to the demise of facts.

How many false stories have been reposted on scientific, medical, political and even current events?

   

What happened to common sense and genuinely doing your own research? Question opinions by seeking out multiple sources of facts as published by respected and accredited institutions and experts with current accredited standing. I want to hear other people's opinions, but I want to know they've taken some time and given some effort towards forming them. Reading a headline and reposting something without scrutiny becomes a waste of everyone's time, or worse, another nail in the coffin of our entire democratic system.

Hasan Minhaj in his address at the correspondent's dinner said: "I don't have a solution of how to win back trust, but I know in the age of Trump, you guys (the media) have to be more perfect than ever because you are how the President gets his news - not from advisors, not from experts, not from intelligent agencies - you guys. So that's why you've got to be twice as good, you've got to be on your A-game, you can't make any mistakes, because when one of you messes up - he blames your entire group; and now you know what it feels like to be a minority." 

In the dawning age of conspiracy, where friends and family regularly state alternative facts as truth, and when challenged, remain defiant and tell you to do your own research, clear thinking, factual journalism and finding alternative sources to double-check alternative facts seems to have become the individual's job. The news media has become entertainment. Politicians have become infallible. Special interest groups have become public relations spokes-people, and facts have become subjective, to be massaged, manipulated, and misrepresented as the truth. 

George Orwell saw this future in a misdirected democracy that delivered authoritarianism. His chilling dystopian tale is starting to feel all too real - the only thing George got wrong was the date.

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

“The best books... are those that tell you what you know already.”

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

“It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”

"How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four."

"Sometimes, two and two are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once."

― George Orwell, 1984

Political Correctness is the Opponent of Free Speech.

The World leaders march in Paris to support free speech, then go home and pass laws to censor the internet, flog a blogger for offensive remarks and condemn Justin Bieber’s heartfelt apology for behaving like a dickhead over the past eighteen months. How did everyone forget what they were marching for so quickly?

Free speech gets supported when it’s speech powerful people agree with. That right changes from country to country, from person to person and from generation to generation, so is it any wonder we find it hard to know where to draw the line and make a stand? There are no ground rules except to rely on a personal moral compass.

In a supermarket I saw kids making fun of an old woman - I was so shocked I stepped in.
“This woman and her generation gave us this country so show some respect.” 
The kids gave me the finger and ran off, but the woman thanked me. I felt good about myself and about my belief that we still have much to protect. Then she asked me to get her a jar off the top shelf. 
“It’s the one with the Ching Chong on the label,” she said. 

I didn’t say anything. I just grabbed the jar. 

Political correctness has taught us how to behave when we’re being watched, but none of the really big problems in our world are caused by people making decisions when they're being watched. That’s why free speech and full disclosure are so important. That’s why we have to look at the past to understand our world and ourselves - even if we discover we come from racist, sexist, homophobic stock.

It’s not entirely the older generation’s fault. You only learn what you’re taught. That’s why contradictions between what people say and what people do matter so much. Every action is a lesson. When Jeremy Clarkson and others who court controversy to gain higher celebrity are excused and defended for their offensive gaffs we as a society feign intolerance to attitudes that the pay checks and popularity of those same people clearly show are wide spread. Are we patching over cracks by not having the discussion or are we teaching people how to behave when they're being watched?    

Political correctness is the opponent of free speech. Genuine free speech means fighting for people you hate to have the right to say things you disagree with. That’s such a difficult right to protect. It is the pinnacle of our highest ideals; the fight for free speech is a fight to give every person in the world the right to be an arsehole. In those terms we’re doing well.

The attack on Charlie Ebdoe was about this exact idea. Gunman stormed in because they believed the images in the magazine were offensive. I think murdering people as your initial complaint is a little drastic – unless it’s a phone company – then no jury in the world would convict you. But there are other ways of dealing with offensive images in magazines – like putting them in plastic bags. No one dies, no matter how many fourteen year old boys claim you can die from that sort of frustration.

The line that Charlie Ebdoe crossed was to show a picture of the Prophet Mohammad. Pictures of tits and cocks, they get covered in plastic. Pictures of Mohammad, they get covered in blood. You risk gunman bursting in and killing people if you show this picture in public.

I’m in favour of free speech, but not against people with guns.

The craziest part is the picture in question was a caricature. When you see a picture of Tony Abbott, our Australian Prime Minister, with huge ears, lizard like features and that evil, smug little smile, the first thing you think is – he’s going to be easy to do a caricature of. 

But a caricature is humorous, it’s satire, it’s trying to make a point through comedy.

Unfortunately, terrorists aren’t known for their sense of humour. Al Qaeda don’t get farce. Isis don’t understand satire, Westborough Baptist Church don’t appreciate the double entendre. Neo Nazis do love a good knock knock, but with them it’s more, “Knock Knock, WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!”

The lesson from Charlie Ebdoe is respect the Prophet Mohammad. If you’re having trouble remembering that, here’s a mnemonic device to help - It’s a no go on the Mo ho-ho.

Our world's problems are so enormous and numerous that it seems nothing an individual can do would ever help. Our leaders call for fairness, but allow 2% of the population to control 50% of the wealth. They want everyone to have affordable health care, but drug companies mark up prices making lifesaving drugs out of reach to many who need them, governments allow torture by renaming it enhanced interrogation and Brittany continues to lip-synch.

In every case the words don’t match the actions.

Is it fair that Bill Gates earns one billion dollars a year, yet a man in India, exactly the same age, earns twenty dollars a year? I think it is to be honest. I’ve used that Indian guy’s software, it doesn’t work at all. 

The internet was the great hope of our generation; an age of shared information. Instead its online innovators have become the new power brokers - Google, Apple, Facebook, ISIS. They’re all the same.

I have a theory that ISIS is the creation of people fed up with the Apple terms and conditions contract. Of all the terrorist groups, ISIS have the most likes. That’s why kids are joining. 

Isis are the first terrorist group to have a marketing department. They’re the Pepsi of terrorism – the choice of a new generation. 

The latest thing ISIS are doing is moving from online into radio and TV. ISIS will have their own Channel of Terror – reality TV all day long. 

The reason we can’t make any real changes as a concerned community is because only a very few people have the power to do so. The 99% can sit on a sidewalk and chant all they want, but the people with real power will never advocate significant change because the ramifications of that change are largely unknown and may unsettle their golden economic throwns.

Look at banks. They caused the financial crisis and even that devastating meltdown hasn't changed how they do business. If you don’t have enough money in your account they now charge you a fee - a fee for being poor. Governments did the same thing two hundred years ago until a people's revolt made them realise how unfair and unpopular it was, but we let banks do whatever they want today by allowing their spin to exist without challenge.  

When I was in Primary school a man came from the bank and gave us all money boxes in the shape of his bank. He said if you put fifty cents into this every week, you’ll be amazed what you end up with. I did. I put fifty cents in every week and when I turned sixteen I couldn’t wait any longer. I opened it up – there was no money, just a statement saying I was overdrawn eight dollars and a legal notice demanding their building back.

It’s no longer just banks. Google and Apple avoid billions in taxes and it’s legal. The world leaders march to protect our rights and then take them away from us. How can we be anything but confused?

Kings and Queens used to have all the power and they’d hand it down to their kids. Now it’s corporations and rich family dynasties. Kim Jong Un took over from Kim Jong IL and Rupert Murdoch is passing on News Corp to his kids – so nothing’s changed in the last two thousand years.

Even Jesus only got into his line of work because of his dad.

God:    Jesus! Where are you going, my son?

Jesus:  Oh, I was thinking of going down to Nazareth College of the Arts.They’re having an open day. I thought I’d have a look at their modern dance course.

God:     I’m all for you having interests outside of work, but you need a real job.

Jesus: Dad, we’ve talked about this before, I’m not interested in creating universes.

God:    Then start with something small, something simple – try saving  the world?

Doesn't that make more sense? Our problems are because God left his son in charge? And the reason Jesus hasn’t been back since is because it’s taken all this time for God to debrief him through all his poor calls of judgement.

God:    Where did you say you put Palestine? 

Jesus:  To be honest, I wasn't really paying attention.

God:     Why did you tell them to ask and it will be given? Why would you say that? And this has to be a misprint. You would never have said, “Man shall not live by bread alone” – to people in a desert? You come off sounding like Marie Antoinette!  

One thing I’m sure of is that no one person is responsible for the complex issues we now face as a race. Osama Bin Laden organised planes to fly into the Twin Towers. America led the world in saying we will never allow such an outrage to happen on this scale again - so the drone program was created where smaller planes fly into smaller buildings.    

Osama, Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Kardashians are all intolerable forms of modern terrorism. It’s just coincidence they all come from the Middle East. It shouldn’t matter where or how terror happens, Middle East, Paris, US sanctioned torture or the Lindt Cafe, Sydney – it appalls us. Anything that can be done to stop it must be done. If you can't get a seat on the UN then why not take a seat in your darkened room hooked up to the internet and troll them at their own game? 

Edward Snowden proved the internet is still our best chance for free speech and free speech can change things. If we all speak up online and become the right sort of internet trolls, we can meme these people for life.

The threat of terrorism is being used by our leaders to get unpopular laws passed. They make people scared about safety and then trade personal freedom to get their way – and they’ve been doing that for decades.

“The people can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. All you have to do is tell them they’re in danger of being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” Herman Goering said that.

And that’s why I’m confused, because I know I didn’t vote for Herman Goering, but somehow I’ve ended up with his policies.

The Internet is Dead as We Knew It.

For two wonderful decades we didn't know we had it so good. The internets, the interwebs, the information coming down the tubes - as one US Congressman assigned to legislate the internet referred to the world wide Web or collaborative computer content.

The secret to the freewheeling, anything goes, ground breaking library of information and creativity came about for two reasons, first: the internet and the development of computers in general hurtled forward faster than anyone could imagine and the legislators and capitalists simply couldn't keep up.

Second: People hate change, so the people in power, the power generation that ruled before computers, couldn't conceive of the old ways being superseded so completely in such a short space of time.

It takes an incredible force to sweep out the powerful on the back of new innovation. Take the oil companies for example. New energies are out there, but the majority of the money for research, development and public relations messages are spent on the fossil fuel industries.

Even name changes like clean energy and clean coal have received countless billions to ingrain them in popular culture, but until someone develops an electric, wind powered, garbage converting engine that matches the current models and costs less and is more convenient to Jill and John Public - Oil, coal and gas will be here to stay.

That smaller, faster, less expensive engine is exactly what happened in the computer industry. Someone built a better mousetrap and they did it in a very short space of time.

In 1987 I bought my first personal computer. An XT with 128mb of hard drive memory. The salesman assured me I could never fill that much space in my lifetime.

Fifteen years later I was downloading TV shows while working in Poland and each downloaded show was around 250mb.

Telephone, TV, Email, Music, Accounting, Graphics and everything related to it from films to games, the stock market, wifi, bluetooth, smart phones - the list is endless and ever growing.

Most of us, certainly me, couldn't imagine a day without waking up and checking at least three online communication sites. Everything we do and say is now, in some way, governed by computers.

And the creative, nerdy geniuses who tried so valiantly to create a new world order of shared information have now been figuratively and literally (Julian Assange, Edward Snowden), locked up and shoved to one side as the lawyers, accountants and monetizing profit chasers have moved in and set up camp at the gates to the internet.

I believe we should pay a fair price for product, be it creative content or productivity software. Just as we pay for the hardware we should have to pay/reward the creators of software. But there's a limit to what we should have to pay and how, and also to the way we pay it and when. It is getting increasingly harder to do anything other than doing it in the prescribed way as dictated by those billionaires now coding the machine.

Before I tackle this wider question I need to make special mention of the extremist group within the computer community. Those who fall just short of knocking on your door to tell you to change your ways, to let him into your heart and give yourself over to his many wonderful gifts.

Of course we are talking of the late and great Steve Jobs and his devout Apple/Mac followers - who simply can't conceive why the whole world hasn't converted to their way of thinking. If they just started killing non believers they would qualify for a tax break as an organised religion. But Apple have always had an eye on the bottom line and that was part of Jobs' genius. If you are an Apple/Mac user you are a slave to doing things their way. And yes, I know, 'Their way is a really good and easy way where everything just works, but it is still their way. No exceptions. You play, pay and even cache their way and you pay for it. Admittedly Jobs knew the simple rule to make people pay - make it as simple as possible and he did and has for a long time. The Iphone and associated Apps being his perfect model.

Foxconn has employed an extra 90,000 factory workers to build the iPhone 5S

But even through the rhetoric, many of my friends who are born again Apple addicts still bit torrent the shit out of everything and anything and thanks to the pirates (bay) of the internet who are fighting the good fight to allow everyone the right to share, use and participate in the global economy, it is still possible to work around the system - even a great system like Apple.

And while these Pirates may not have found a way to stream food and water to the starving and sick, they have found a way to get Mylie Cyrus into the calloused hands of the eight year old Chinese garment workers.

Meanwhile, back at Bill Gates' house, Windows 8 has arrived to make life easier for brain dead tablet users who simply want to point and tap and have the computer do what they want it to do. Microsoft word 365 can now set you back $9.95 a month for life. Any older Office version is now obsolete on Windows 8 as everyone down the line feverishly works at maximizing the dollar income for their product.

We live in a world where every person in the western world has bought Beatles' songs in a different format for every decade of their life. Ten years ago a cafe quality expresso machine cost three to four hundred dollars. Then someone saw what computer printing machine companies had done - the machine costs between $99 and $200 and the ink cartridges cost $35 each. Most cartridges last 800 to 1000 pages and for most home users this is 3 to 5 cartridges a year. Photo quality ink and paper is a little more - but inside a year you have paid more than you did for the printer and remarkably, flying in the face of industry best practice of planned obsolescence, a printer now miraculously - just keeps on working. Isn't that odd? And for every year of its life it pays for itself in cartridge costs over again.

Seeing this model and realising they were missing out on a revenue stream, Espresso makers incorporated whipped their fair quality/fair priced machines off the shop floor and replaced them with Espresso machines that take uniquely designed capsules, produced by the same corporation and costing about half of what a cafe coffee costs. This machine pays for itself many times over a year in capsule sales alone. Once again they have suckered millions into providing them with an ongoing revenue stream.

Computers are using this model.

Imagine if you got into your car one morning, turned the key and had a message light up on the dash board - "Your car's engine and wheels are no longer compatible. We can upgrade your engine, but you will need to purchase new wheels before your car will run. Do you want to update and purchase now?"

This is the model we have allowed the digital hardware and software giants to confuse and bluff by us with arguments of an ever changing, highly complex and expanding digital age.

I am sure it would be impossible for anyone to create a new operating system that was compatible with software that worked perfectly on an old version. Of course it's not possible - these guys are only good at creating brand new products that are as bold as anything any of us can dream of - who dreams of compatibility? The latest interesting feature is that Windows 8 doesn't recognize POP email. Huh? It seems however if you swap to Gmail - then the G-mail App apparently works. I didn't try it - I simply found a free app - downloaded it in about 10 seconds and found my email fly into its organiser. Amazing isn't it that these independent App designers could do so simply what all the billions of dollars worth of coding talent in Microsoft couldn't manage. Do they own G-mail? No, I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't be trying to force that on people. That's just me being a conspiracy nut. Oh, wait - they do own G-mail.

Their suggested solution, as provided within Windows 8 help, is to ring your email provider and ask to be changed to the new IMAP format. But then none of your old devices reading POP would work, so you'd have to upgrade them as well. Squeak, Squeak. We are the hamster on this digital wheel of innovation and they are seeing how long we will run with no reward.

Their system does work without any glitches if you follow their instructions and integrate all your online activity into one giant, self exposing binary blurt of information about who you are, what you like and what you do. Can't imagine how that would help them make money - oh yeah, facebook, using exactly that technique is now worth 100 Billion.

I am not against Windows 8 by the way. It's a great system and straddles the current hurdle between touch devices and genuine PCs. I am a writer. I need Office or Pages - I need Final Draft because companies who hire me specify Final Draft scripts be used, I need Google and all its reference capabilities.

The cloud storage is great - I'm happy to have a backup, but I am often not online. I get sent all over the world to work and it often takes a while for me to set my base up and get wifi or cable to be online. I like to work and I always work while travelling on a plane or in a car/bus in a foreign land. Can I pull a file I need to work on from the cloud while in a cloud on a plane? No.

I am not the only one - I know this because Apps have appeared - Cloudon - etc that help you quickly transfer files from the cloud to your computer. My understanding of computers means I don't need cloudon - it was very easy, but still not obvious, unless you had even a basic understanding of how computers worked, on my new laptop that came equipped with Windows 8. But then that's the trick. The new press and play mentality means many users no longer have even this elementary understanding of what's going on behind their welcome screens.

I like knowing how to format things and make them play and store the way I want them done - not their way. Because when I first got the computer, almost every single thing I pressed took me to an option to pay for more service, to enroll, to sign up to 'needed' software that would be provided for an ongoing payment. None of it was needed, all of it would have cluttered up my machine and made it run slower down the line.

I don't want ongoing payments. I don't want ongoing messages asking me to use product I haven't yet used. I have a security preference and regardless of the fact you came with the package - I am ignoring you for a reason - I have made a choice not to use you.

So that brings me full circle to my point. My 30 month old Nephew is a whiz on Apple. Loves his iPad. He looks at magazines and thinks they are broken iPads, but he's not my child - so that's funny to me. He can make his not broken iPad do anything he wants because he's learnt what it wants him to want.

I am sure there are Apple users out there who do some things their way rather than just accepting it must be done as the instruction manual says - please let me know if you are such a rebel.

For me, I am happy to pay for product I need and will use all the time, but I believe I should be able to buy it once and use it until the world has made it antiquated and in need of an update - not because a company tells me its time for their ongoing fee. I will join what I want to join and go where I want to go - I won't do any of it because you are forcing those choices on me. In short - make it worthwhile to pay the fee you ask or expect someone with an original mind to help the rest of us find an alternative way to use and abuse your product.

That's the way software and the internet have always been, but I fear the corporations are snapping all the original thinkers up and pretty soon they'll have more brain power than that geeky sixteen year old neighbour who spends his life at his computer trying to help the rest of us stay free from ongoing fees.

My only solace is sixteen year old social rejects have more time on their hands than anyone could possible imagine - and that's the original formula that created the digital revolution to begin with, so, fingers crossed, it's my hope that the revolution has just hit a hiatus and is not irretrievably lost.

Don't pay the ferryman,

Don't even fix a price,

Don't pay the ferryman,

Until he gets you to the other side